On Friday, Nov. 13, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced in a press briefing, along with leaders in the health and wellness sector of our state and other officials, that the response seen from our counties and communities to COVID-19 was simply not enough. With death tolls on the rise, as well as the numbers for those currently hospitalized or in Intensive Care Units (ICUs), Justice outlined further restrictions and social distancing guidelines that would take place immediately until further notice; some of this legislation included but was not limited to a statewide indoor face covering requirement, an extension to public and private school student’s, grades K-12, Thanksgiving break, a cancellation of the 2021 student concert band festivals, as per recommendation from the state’s Bandmasters association, which were to be held regionally throughout the state, an updated requirement for all nursing home and assisted care and living facility employees to be tested twice weekly, and the halt of all winter interscholastic and travel sports, along with the delay of those activities that have yet to begin.\
With Governor Justice already having cancelled many fall sports for schools throughout the state, interscholastic and travel teams gave students a way to release their pent up energy and feel at least some semblance of normalcy while they navigated already confusing times within the pandemic and distance learning; while wise to extend the already stringent legislation in place, many student athletes are feeling the already overbearing strain of quarantine even more heavily.
“I am extremely upset; really, really upset. I understand, for [the] assurance of the overall well being of everyone, there are necessary precautions that must be taken; but people need outlets like extracurriculars. Everything else has already been taken away from us, and it’s been shown that we can practice safely while still following the guidelines of social distancing and quarantine,” Victoria Kidney, a sophomore swimmer at John Marshall High School in Glen Dale, West Virginia, shared. While even she agrees that these measures are wise in being taken, Victoria also expressed fears in potentially taking things too far; citing issues like where students and young adults might go (most likely in opposition to proper social distancing guidelines) now that they no longer have an outlet such as an extra-curricular to release all the energy that has built up from within quarantine. “Of course it may eliminate potential spread that could happen within teams, but you could also say that because students don’t get to go to practice or even have to go at a certain time, they might go to places where contraction and spread is a real threat. It’s good that we’re slowing the spread, but we need to get back out there, eventually. You can’t just stop everything forever.”
Going further with this, Victoria, also a member of her local private/club team, the Wheeling YMCA, and international team, USA Swimming, as well as her high school, noted that, in reality, private and club settings might actually be better than school affiliated sports in the first place within the conversation of safety and sanitization; “Within these club sports, you’re only being exposed to a certain group of people; in high school, where you’re being exposed to an entire student body and then your team and possibly other athletes from different teams, there’s obviously going to be a higher rate of contraction. Because clubs are privately funded, they can pay to take the precautions necessary that the school’s have yet to take, simply because they don’t have the resources available to them. Things are being sanitized, they’re handling things better, and we, at least as a swim team, are able to hold all our meets virtually; which means no travel, and no contact with other teams.”
As the year comes to a close, and the pandemic continues on down a dark, seemingly endless path, outlets of expression and activity are necessary for the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of all of us, so can we get by as more and more of these opportunities are taken away from us?